Two men who were part of what police have called “London’s most prolific Grindr gang” have been jailed for a combined eight-and-a-half years after using the gay dating app to target men in the capital.
Rahmad Khan Mohammadi, 23 and Mohammed Bilal Hotak, 21 stole phones, passports and wallets in 35 burglaries and 20 related frauds, totalling £68,000 over six months, the Met said.
One victim was left hospitalised with stress after their finances were “destroyed” when loans, credit agreements and overdrafts were taken out using their name.
Sentencing the pair at Iselworth Crown Court on Monday, Judge Adenike Bologun said the gang were relying on victims “being too embarrassed to report the crime”.
But she said she wasn’t persuaded that the offences demonstrated hostility to the victims based on their sexual orientation, adding that “this was an opportunistic offence.”
The court had heard how Mohammadi, from Harrow, and Hotak, from Hackney, both Afghan nationals, tricked their way into the homes of unsuspecting men by arranging to meet up with them on the dating app.
Met Police officers told News that multiple men were targeted per week by repeatedly making new profiles on the app.
Once inside their homes, the duo distracted the men and persuaded them to unlock their phones by requesting to use them to play music, sometimes asking the victim to take a shower before sex, and then escaping with the device or other valuable items.
The gang would then use debit and credit cards stored on the phones and on one occassion accessed a victim’s bank account and stole money by transferring cash.
On another occasion, they convinced a man to meet them in a nearby park.
Proescuting, David Patience, read statements by the victims to the court describing the damage done to their confidence and finances.
One described how he felt his ‘vulnerability was used against me, because of my sexuality and body size’.
‘I was manipulated and led into a park late at night, my phone was taken from me, I was humiliated and unable to protect myself.’
Another described how he was hospitalised due to the stress, and another recounted how his studies and finances were wrecked.
Mr Patience claimed the pair held “contemptuous ill will” towards the victims based on their sexuality and use of the app, which is predominantly used by gay and bisexual men.
“They did not target women, heterosexual men – they targeted gay men. They thought they would be easier to commit offences against”, he told the court.
But barrister for Hotak, John Kearney, claimed the “victims will have learned a lesson” and strongly denied the suggestion that this was in some way “ill will towards the gay community”.
“Women would not have been as foolish and reckless to place themselves in a position of vulnerability with strange men coming into their home” he said.
Defending Mohammadi, Nathan Toms, claimed his client had left Afghanistan after he was stabbed at the age of 15 by his then girlfriend’s brother.
“His own family forced him to flee,” he told the court.
“His father was going to murder him because he was linked to the government and he believed it would ‘reset relations’ with his employer. He arrived in this country via a lorry.”
Mohammadi was sentenced to five years in prison and Hotak to three and a half.